


“The world resists, when you break its rules.”

by hakuto_jelly



Series: word vomit i spedrun [2]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (:, All my homies hate c!Dream, Angst, Canon Compliant, Chess Themes, Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Emotional Manipulation, Evil Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Exiled TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Gaslighting, Hopeful Ending, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Manipulative Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Manipulative Relationship, Pandora's Vault, Post-Manberg-Pogtopia War on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prisoner Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Stockholm Syndrome, The Author Regrets Nothing, TommyInnit Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Traumatized Tommyinnit (Video Blogging RPF), Villain Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), also references to vicious because i love that book with a burning passion, but he also likes him, c!Dream is a bitchboy, dream hates tommy, he thinks tommy is fun to play with, no beta we die like jack manifold refuses to, please read it it's so good, sadistic loser smh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29063898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakuto_jelly/pseuds/hakuto_jelly
Summary: There was something… familiar about him, something that he can recognize but can’t name. Dream could feel it in his veins, something that he felt so far down inside himself that it felt fundamental, like he had been created to feel it. To feel that painful, echoing longing, that visceral need for control that burned underneath his skin. That impulse smoldered whenever the kid was near, calling for Dream to take over and crush him like a cockroach under his heel.They were opposites in every way that counted, but Dream knew they were alike in many all the same. Dream relished in the fact that the blonde teen denied him, that Tommy wouldn’t cave and turn into a marionette for Dream to parade around. He despised him, but respected him. After all, what’s chess without another player?
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), shippers please leave - Relationship
Series: word vomit i spedrun [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134122
Comments: 25
Kudos: 130





	“The world resists, when you break its rules.”

_“The absence of pain led to an absence of fear, and the absence of fear led to a disregard for consequences.” - Victor Vale, Vicious_

There was something… familiar about him, something that he can recognize but can’t name. Dream could feel it in his veins, in his bones, in the thrum of his pulse and the thudding rush of his blood in his ears. That visceral need for control that burned underneath his skin smoldered when he was near.

The kid was his opposite; brash, loud, annoying, profane, young. There was an energy there that poured off of the kid like sweat, vitality wafting through the air like perfume, thick and viscous. His soul- or what remained. He wasn’t sure he had a soul anymore- crooned, excitement coursing like adrenaline through his body whenever the blonde teen defied him. He was intrigued; he hated the kid with a burning passion, but he was drawn to him like a moth to a lamp.

As much as he despised Tommy, he respected him; hell, Dream even thinks that he loves him. Not the kind of love that set butterflies loose to flutter in his stomach or the kind of love that made his cold heart ache with everything he had, but love in the way a villain loves their enemy.

Tommy was the Batman to his Joker, the Eli Cardale to his Victor Vale. Tommy was Dream’s foil, and he loved him for it. He wanted to crush the teen’s heart in his hands, to kill him and destroy his remains until there was nothing left. He wanted to see the blonde, to fight him, to make him yell with rage, a cry for victory. He wanted him to laugh with him, to weep because of him, to make him suffer.

Playing with Tommy was fun. Chess is no fun without an opponent after all. Without another player, the challenge is lost and boredom arrives. Dream hated boredom. He wanted power, strength. He wanted to win. He wanted to defeat a strong challenger, and Tommy filled that role. If Tommy died, Dream didn’t know what he’d do.

At first, all Dream saw was a brash, naive kid who wouldn’t listen to his superiors, who would challenge every order and every decision that he didn’t like. Dream wanted to crush his soul, destroy his spirit, make him submit, back bent under the force of Dream’s heel. He wanted a good little puppet who would listen to him like the rest of the little mice that scampered around his SMP.

He was so giving, such a kind ruler. He gave them whatever they deserved, and this child and his brother corrupted his citizens with drugs and hot dog vans and delusions about independence and countries separate from him. And he couldn’t stand for it.

He let them live their little fantasy for a short while, but put his foot down when their claims grew outlandish. How dare they take advantage of his kindness and then use him to grow power for themselves?

They needed to be good little sheep and stay safe in their pen, away from the dangers of wolves roaming nearby.

Dream pulled the red strings from which his puppets hung, and he watched them dance to the rhythm of his music. All except Tommy. Tommy didn’t listen. Tommy didn’t submit. Tommy was dangerous. He was stronger than most knew, smarter than most realized, more charismatic than his brother gave him credit for.

Soon, the strings that dangled from the blonde teen tightened around his throat. He choked, and Dream smiled.

Tommy began to crack in exile, Dream’s patience chipping away at the tough exterior, brushing away the shards of the loud, confident “man” he proclaimed himself to be, until all that remained was a broken child who thought that his friends ~~_chess pieces_~~ cared about him. That was a lie, of course. No one cared for Tommy, not in the way that Dream did. And Dream cared. In fact, he cared so much that he began to mold the kid into his finest creation yet.

But Tommy refused to shatter. He pieced himself back together and left his exile, regaining his previous strength with Technoblade’s help. It didn’t last long. Soon, Tommy was back on Tubbo’s side, Dream had Techno’s help, and L’Manburg was gone, all ashes and rubble.

In the final battle, Dream had finally won. Tommy lost, and he would lose so much more than his discs. Dream smiled widely, laughing with glee. Tommy was so important to him. Tommy made the game so fun. But to make sure that Tommy would lose, he would get rid of the President. Tubbo had no use to Dream, and attachment is weakness. He was doing Tommy a favor. Why couldn’t the kid see that?

Dream won and then lost and lost and lost. He lost the war, he lost his items, he lost his pawns, he lost his power, he lost his lives. All he has left is his mask, one measly life, and the knowledge that he had successfully broken Tommy, once upon a time. He would’ve died, had he not listened to Tommy. Tommy would’ve died, impaled on Dream’s own sword, if Dream didn’t listen. Dream listened, conceded for once in his life. For once, he lost.

In Pandora’s Vault, left to rot away inside his own prison, he has nothing. No pawns left, no knights, no rooks, no queen. He is a king in check, trapped on all sides by cold, dark, obsidian walls and the constant humming of redstone. He is alone. Tommy comes to visit in his prison, comes to taunt him. He comes to ask why. Dream can’t answer why. Dream doesn’t know why himself. All he knows is that he is alone and that his opponent is so much stronger than he previously thought.

Each time the teen visits, he sees something in his eyes, hidden behind feral rage and confidence. He sees fear and sadness and betrayal. His blue eyes, so much older than he is, hold a weight that sends shivers up Dream’s spine, culminating in a cunning smile that splits across his face. He sees the tense posture of a veteran of war melt away to the slouched, submissive form of a child who’s been hurt. He sees the scarred skin, a memory of pain and violence and destruction. And it fills him with pride, with a sick sense of glee.

He left his mark behind. Instead of a pawn, he made an enemy. He made an equal. They are different, and yet they are the same. Two sides of the same coin.

_“We’re friends,” he tells Tommy. Tommy doesn’t believe him anymore, but Dream can still see that spark of reliance. He knows why Tommy keeps coming back. He’s been hurt, he’s been broken, and Dream is the only one who can put him back together. He wants Tommy alive, so that he can continue his game. Tommy is the White Queen to his Black King. Tommy could have power and so much more if only he sought it._

Dream sees himself in Tommy. Dream sees himself in the bright spark in the blonde’s blue eyes, in the barking laugh, in the snarling rage he bites out, spilling from his mouth like water, like he’ll drown if he doesn’t scream it out to the heavens. His rage is his lifeboat, his protective shell, and Dream knows that beneath it, there is a young, fledgling god waiting to be born.

And so he sits in the dark of his prison and he waits. ~~_He ignores the loneliness that aches in his heart, the darkness that smothers him. He ignores the knowledge that he is hated, because he shouldn’t care. They were chess pieces, he tries to convince himself. Attachment is weakness. Power is strength. You don’t need friends, he tells himself. It doesn’t work._~~ The day the little godling is born is a day he looks forward to. Now all he has to do is wait.

Patience is a virtue, they say.

Patience is a tactique that will allow him to win in the end, Dream believes.

He only hopes that Tommy sees the futility of attachment, of putting his hopes and dreams into a place and people like L’Manburg and watching them, ideals and people alike, be crushed into dust.

After all, _it was never meant to be._

**Author's Note:**

> not me literally speedrunning this hahaha. 
> 
> hilariously enough, this was supposed to be an au idea i had for dream and tommy being like, these two really old opposing gods who'd been fighting since the beginning of time, since they're literal opposites. it started as that and then turned into what ever this mess is.
> 
> i really struggle with being creative when i have so many thoughts about actual canon stuff hahahaha ;;. whoops?
> 
> also ignore me ranting about vicious in the tags, i just love that book. it was actually kinda the inspiration for this, but only just because i thought about it while writing and because i used quotes from it as the title and at the beginning. please read vicious by v e schwab. it's such a good book (:


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